N THE BEGINNING, when the super
tanker Exxon Valdez gutted herself
on Bligh Reef and vomited 11 mil
lion gallons of crude oil into Alaska's
exquisite Prince William Sound, it
seemed truly like the ending of a
world. Seabirds were dying by the
thousands in the muck. Vast stocks
of salmon and herring and halibut
would perish next, naturalists feared, and
with them an industry and a way of life. On the
eighth day of the disaster I walked shorelines
that glittered black as far as I could see. A piti
ful handful of cleanup vessels confronted the
largest tanker spill in United States history.
What hope could there possibly be?
Five months later I walked those shores
again. Incredibly I found pink salmon spawn
ing in a stream that had been choked with oil,
and I smelled fresh seaweed on a pebble beach
where native bacteria had eaten much of the
oil away.
Clearly the world had not ended.
Equally clearly, its rehabilitation had just
begun. Throughout the sound and down the
Gulf of Alaska as far as lower Cook Inlet and
Kodiak Island, the damage had been stagger
ing. Oil had drenched or spattered at least
1,200 miles of shoreline. Experts believed that
as many as 100,000 birds had died, including
some 150 bald eagles. At least 1,000 sea otters
had perished, despite an eight-million-dollar
rescue and rehabilitation program. Economic
costs had been staggering as well: The state
had canceled the opening of herring fisheries
and restricted the salmon take, together worth
more than one hundred million dollars a year.
Meanwhile the Exxon Corporation, owner
of the ship and the spilled oil, had spent a bil
lion dollars on a cleanup campaign in which
some 11,000 workers had scoured beaches
with everything from high-pressure hot-water
jets to rakes and shovels and paper towels.
Now, as winter approached and Exxon
closed down its effort, new controversies were
added to older ones. Was Exxon quitting too
early with the job half done, as state officials
claimed? Had the cleanup actually done more
harm than good? Many scientists now felt it
time to let nature cleanse herself with the tides
and violent storms of winter.
"Sometime in July the cleanup crossed the
Days after the spill, fishermen confront oily gunk a foot thick clogging a bay on Eleanor Island,
about 35 miles from the wrecked tanker. Throughout the spill area, 36,000 dead seabirds, such
as a grebe (right), were found-perhaps a third of those killed. Recovered animals were frozen for
possible use as evidence in lawsuits; more than 150 have been filed against Exxon.
National Geographic, January1990